The notion of 'respectability' reigned
supreme in the late Victorian age and women especially were
expected to uphold and live by it. Their place was supposed
to be in the home - the 'domestic angel' - and yet the 1901
census reported that 31.6% of females over the age of 10 were
in paid employment. Who were these women and what work did
they do?

A
woman's place is in the home? The 1901 census found that less than one-third of women
were in paid employment. However, this statistic is almost certainly
underestimated because work done in the home often went unrecorded.

Most women who undertook paid employment in 1901 did so because
they had to. Widowhood, for members of the working classes,
almost always meant penury; some women felt the need to boost
the family income because their husbands were unemployed or
poorly paid; others worked because they had no other family
members to support them. There were, of course, some women
who worked to maintain their independence, but they were in
a minority.

The paid work undertaken
by women was varied. The 1901 census recorded women employed
as lawyers' clerks, physicians, dentists or dental assistants,
teachers, authors, journalists and shorthand writers. However,
the vast majority - nearly 80% - were in domestic and other
services or in manufacture (usually connected to textiles).

Most women who worked were employed as domestic servants:
they numbered 1,690,686 women, or 40.5% of the adult female
working population. Their working conditions varied enormously.
Although some were employed in large households, it seems likely
that more worked in homes with only a few servants. Wages varied,
too. A Board of Trade report of 1899 found that the average
annual wage for a female domestic servant aged 21 to 25 was
£16 5s. However, whilst a housemaid in this age bracket earned
close to this average with wages of £16 2s, a general maid earned
only £14 6s.Should women work? Despite Victorian ideology about a woman's place, in
1901 there was debate about whether women should work, and,
if so, what kind of work should they do. A letter to The
Times called the employment of young women in the City of
London 'a gigantic mistake' and argued that employment as servants
was a much better training for their future role as wives. When
a female doctor was appointed at Macclesfield Infirmary in 1901,
her male colleagues walked out and she was forced to resign.
Yet a 1901 editorial in The
Times argued that women's wages
were essential, rather than additional, to the family's income
and that they were 'far lower than they ought to be'.